The globally dominant culture is suffering from an economic, ecological and social crisis that has deeper roots than failing budgets and environmental degradation. Do we have a role to play if our culture is headed towards its eventual death? Though our economic system has trained us to be needy, can we approach these challenges as if we were needed?

In Extraenvironmentalist #51 we speak with Stephen Jenkinson about our cultural difficulty with death. Stephen draws on lessons learned from decades of working with death to describe how we can frame our civilization’s trajectory. We ask how to find sanity in a time of alienation and if we can be a human in difficult circumstances. Stephen describes the distinct jobs given to us as our family members die. Also, John Michael Greer joins us briefly to talk about the death of Western culture.

This man is wonderfully wise and affecting in ways that surprise and inspire us in life’s mandatory. I am astonished to hear a kindred spirit in this speaker, so eloquently saying what I’ve been saying all my life about death and dying, and so much more. Some of his ideas, if not the words themselves, seemed to come right out of Nine Inch Bride. A happy confluence.

[…] of Industrial Civilization. On the website I found an interview with a couple of younger guys from The “ExtraEnvironmentalist.com.” The interview is over two hours long and covers much of what Stephen is thinking about. I […]

I think that the cultural “death phobia” is part of a broader tendency to reject anything negative at all. As I am sure you have found this makes discussing the dying biosphere or culture taboo. Just get a job, buy shit and don’t point out the bad stuff!

[…] Culture of Dying. These guys had an enormous capacity for anger…but they didn’t know how to be sad. Stephen Jenkinson explains how our culture taught us to deny death and sadness. He thought-provokingly tells how to turn this around. Please listen from 8:30 – 25:00. […]

S Is Not Yet P- Notes on the Myth of Solidity — Bruce Sanguin's Blog on Evolutionary Christianity

[…] is crucial for inspiring the kind of action that can transform a stagnant, oppressive and/or dying society. It’s also dangerous to the ruling elite. As the biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann has pointed […]

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